Medical needles have been used to deliver therapeutic or diagnostic agents to a target site within tissue for treatment or diagnostic purposes. Needles typically have a tubular body for delivering an agent, and a sharp distal tip for puncturing skin and/or other bodily tissues, thereby creating a needle tract through intervening tissues between the skin and the target site.
Before the tip of the needle reaches the target site, i.e., while the needle is advanced through intervening tissue, there is a risk that the agent may leak out of the distal tip of the needle and into the intervening tissue. Since the agent may be sclerotic, necrotic, and/or toxic to living tissue, if the agent leaks or spreads, it may damage the intervening tissue.
After an agent is delivered to the target site, the needle is typically withdrawn, thereby leaving the created tract through the tissues that eventually closes up through normal healing. However, before the tract is healed, the agent(s) delivered to the target site may leak into the tract, possibly spreading the agent(s) to surrounding tissue. As discussed previously, since the agent may be toxic to living tissue, allowing the agent to spread may damage the surrounding tissue. For example, when treating a prostate with Ethanol, significant amounts of the infused Ethanol may leak through the needle tract, possibly damaging unintended tissue.
Furthermore, when a needle is used to deliver an agent to a tumor, tumor cells may be released into surrounding tissue simply by perforating the tumor with the needle. For example, tumor cells may migrate into the needle tract and into surrounding healthy tissue through the needle tract. This phenomenon is known as “tract seeding.”
Thus, apparatus and methods for delivering an agent to a site that minimize the agent leaking and/or tumor cells migrating to surrounding tissue would be useful.